PC Critic Reviews

Waking probably won't resonate with most - it's far too oblique and mixed for most, and it's complicated art for weirdos. But as one of those weirdos, I found Jason Oda's unique thesis on life, death, and everything between the two to be an engaging, engrossing, and challenging experience.

Waking is a game that attempts to be two very different things, and for the most part, it succeeds quite well. If you’re willing to devote a little bit of time to learning its quirky systems, you’re in for a potentially rewarding experience. An experience which encourages you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and go back into your memories.

Perhaps with a couple of in-depth quality-of-life updates, Waking can be something special. For now, the reality is its unique narrative is held back by some fundamental design oversights.

In theory, Waking sounds like a fascinating project, with the game showing hints of delivering a highly tailored, personal and transformative experience. But what begins as an exercise for intimate self-reflection wound up becoming an increasingly detached experience for the player. By putting them into the game in the most literal sense, Waking fell short when it was unable to capture all the nuances of its impossible protagonist: yourself. While I admire the boldness of its vision, I simply couldn’t connect with the extent of its execution.

Waking is a fascinating experiment that tries, but ultimately fails, to combine two radically different ideas together. Less would certainly have been more here, as the clunky and overly confusing action parts get in the way of the interesting narrative and psychological aspects. While I was drawn in by the central conceit and the use of meditation, the end result is more likely to leave you in a coma than drag you into the light.

The idea to enhance the fighting system with meditative elements sounds interesting but doesn’t work out in any way. The meditations move to the background, while the fighting system, which is not that bad, takes the front row. Long loading times, bad controls and constantly the same animations cloud the overall picture further.

They say never judge a book by the cover, as whats inside almost always is better than whats outside. In Waking's case however, the only pretty thing is the cover. Shallow and broken gameplay? Check. Bad controls? Check. Poor visuals? Check. Innovations?. Nowhere to be found. Worth a shot? Probably not.

Waking will have you eager to wake up within the first few hours. Its compelling self-reflective narrative is overshadowed by some of the worse adventure mechanics and systems that I have played in quite some time. Perhaps the game should go through some self-reflecting of its own and figure out exactly what it wants to be because this is a complete mess.

Avoid it at all costs and do almost literally anything else with your time.